A Source Book for Ancient Church History

by Joseph Cullen Ayer

The deputies from the Council of Ariminum were sent to Nice, a small town in Thrace, where they met the heads of the Arian party. A creed, strongly Arian in tendency, was given them and they were sent back to Ariminum to have it accepted. See Theodoret, loc. cit., and Athanasius, De Synodis.

We believe in one and only true God, Father Almighty, of whom are all things. And in the only begotten Son of God, who before all ages and before every beginning was begotten of God, through whom all things were made, both visible and invisible; begotten, only begotten, alone of the Father alone, God of God, like the Father that begat Him, according to the Scriptures, whose generation no one knoweth except only the Father that begat Him. This only begotten Son of God, sent by His Father, we know to have come down from heaven, as it is written, for the destruction of sin and death; begotten of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, as it is written, according to the flesh. Who companied with His disciples, and when the whole dispensation was fulfilled, according to the Father's will, was crucified, dead and buried, and descended to the world below, at whom hell itself trembled; on the third day He rose from the dead and companied with His disciples, and when forty days were completed He was taken up into the heavens, and sitteth on the right hand of His Father, and is coming at the last day of the resurrection, in His Father's glory, to render to every one according to his works. And in the Holy Ghost, which the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, both God and Lord, promised to send to the race of men, the comforter, as it is written, the spirit of truth, and this Spirit He himself sent after He had ascended [pg 319] into the heavens and sat at the right hand of the Father, from thence He is coming to judge both the quick and the dead.

But the word “substance,” which was simply inserted by the Fathers and not being understood was a cause of scandal to the people because it was not found in the Scriptures, it hath seemed good to us to remove, and that for the future no mention whatever be permitted of “substance,” because the sacred Scriptures nowhere make any mention of the “substance” of the Father and the Son. Nor must one “subsistence” [hypostasis] be named in relation to the person [prosopon] of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And we call the Son like the Father, as the Holy Scriptures call Him and teach. But all heresies, both those already condemned, and any, if such there be, which have arisen against the document thus put forth, let them be anathema.

(c) Hilary of Poitiers. De Synodis, §§ 88, 89, 91. (MSL, 10:540.)

That the Homoiousian party meant substantially the same by their term homoiousios as did the Homoousians or the Nicene party, by their term homoousios.

Hilary was of great importance in the Arian controversy in bringing the Homoiousian party of the East and the Nicene party of the West to an agreement. The Eastern theologians, who hesitated to accept the Nicene term, were eventually induced to accept, understanding by the term homoousios the same as homoiousios. See below, [§ 70].

§ 88. Holy brethren, I understand by homoousios God of God, not of an unlike essence, not divided, but born; and that the Son has a birth that is unique, of the substance of the unknown God, that He is begotten yet co-eternal and wholly like the Father. The word homoousios greatly helped me already believing this. Why do you condemn my faith in the homoousios, which you cannot disapprove by the confession of the homoiousios? For you condemn my faith, or rather your own, when you condemn its verbal equivalent. Does somebody else misunderstand it? Let us together condemn [pg 320] the misunderstanding, but not take away the security of your faith. Do you think that one must subscribe to the Samosetene Council, so that no one may make use of homoousios in the sense of Paul of Samosata? Then let us subscribe to the Council of Nicæa, so that the Arians may not impugn the word homoousios. Have we to fear that homoiousios does not imply the same belief as homoousios? Let us decree that there is no difference between being of one and being of a similar substance. But may not the word homoousios be understood in a wrong sense? Let it be proved that it can be understood in a good sense. We hold one and the same sacred truth. I beseech you that the one and the same truth which we hold, we should regard as sacred among us. Forgive me, brethren, as I have so often asked you to do. You are not Arians; why, then, by denying the homoousios, should you be thought to be Arians?

§ 89. … True likeness belongs to a true natural connection. But when the true natural connection exists, the homoousios is implied. It is likeness according to essence when one piece of metal is like another and not plated.… Nothing can be like gold but gold, or like milk that does not belong to that species.

§ 91. I do not know the word homoousios or understand it unless it confesses a similarity of essence. I call God of heaven and earth to witness, that when I heard neither word, my belief was always such that I should have interpreted homoiousios by homoousios. That is I believed that nothing could be similar according to nature unless it was of the same nature.